[an error occurred while processing this directive]		Last Updated April 28, 2000 If you would like to send a letter, click on the Letters to Editor Form. Remember the Shoah Yom HaShoah will be observed, beginning at sundown Monday, May 1. Every Jew lost somebody in the Shoah. For us survivors, it is several family members; for those born in America, it is a close relative from Europe that they never met but was once alive. As one of the last Shoah survivors, I urge you to try to remember what they went through and to keep their memory alive. It seems that the interest in the Holocaust is fading, and we cannot risk to forget. Several individuals are trying hard to deny the Holocaust and history might repeat itself. Let us pledge to prevent this to happen. RENE MOLHO Alameda Pain compensation After insurance companies settle with Holocaust heirs, and art objects are found and returned, who will compensate the hidden child survivors, the young adults who missed out on education, and the adult survivors who had no wealth? Will all of them -- and the history of 1940-45 -- then be forgotten while those who kept the "wealth" find their consciences appeased? Can or will pain and suffering ever be compensated in any way? ARNOLDINE BERLIN Oakland Barbaric plan? I have been studying Hebrew at the JCC in Palo Alto after visiting Israel in 1998. Now I have discovered the school district threatens to confiscate by eminent domain this much needed 17-year-old establishment of Jewish culture. This seems incredible since Palo Alto is presumed to possess a high degree of intellectual and ethical consciousness. I have to wonder how could such a barbaric and cold-blooded plan be conceived? Is Berlin's Kristallnacht to be imported into suburban California? Are the attackers of Sacramento's three synagogues and the JCC in Los Angeles to be morally supported and encouraged by the school district? True, not by fire and bullets or the smashing of glass, but are the results any less deadly -- deadly to the cultural and social nurture of the entire Jewish community? The same community that, regardless of centuries of unconscionable persecution, extends the generosity of their friendship to non-Jews as well as Jews. These are the finest people on the face of the earth, by my standards, and is this how we treat them? Please tell me that this is not a nightmare from which we cannot awake, but a warning to which we must respond. LISA DOUGLAS San Carlos Film whimsy I read with diminishing interest and ultimate disappointment Mark Simborg's review of Edward Norton's successful directorial debut of a delightful new whimsical comedy, "Keeping the Faith" (April 21 Bulletin), and wondered: Why? Why is Simborg disappointed in this charming, low budget flick: Because it doesn't contain a profound abiding Jewish message? Because Jake, the rabbi's character played skillfully by Ben Stiller, dates and falls in love with a thoughtful and sensitive shiksa? There is little if anything offered in "Faith" that is profound, educational or significantly symbolic. It seems to this humble reviewer of the review that, more times than not, we ought to simply accept and enjoy these small moments of film whimsy as they are so infrequently available, and take them as they are offered: simple entertainment -- nothing more and nothing less. AL PLATT Palo Alto Prevent major splits The Israeli parliament recently gave its preliminary approval to legislation stating that a national referendum on giving away the Golan Heights must be approved by over 50 percent of all eligible voters, rather than over 50 percent of those who actually vote in the referendum. That will mean, in effect, that a Golan surrender would require the approval of about 60 percent of those who vote in the referendum. Critics have claimed the legislation is racist because its effects could be to reduce the impact of Israeli Arabs' votes. Even if Israel were 100 percent Jewish, there should still be a requirement that there be a substantial majority vote for issues of such magnitude. The issue is not who is voting; the issue is that everything must be done to ensure that there is no major split in the Israeli people. That's why virtually every Western democracy requires a two-thirds or larger majority in their parliaments to approve any treaty with a foreign country. Even the kibbutz where Ehud Barak once lived, Mishmar Hasharon, requires a special two-thirds majority "for decisions that affect the way of life on the kibbutz." MORTON A. KLEIN, national president Zionist Organization of America New York

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